When Smelly Met Sally
by WindowChild
Summary: Smelly Gabe, before he got his name. All villains have a story behind them, a reason for the way they are. Written for The Percy Jackson Fanfiction Olympics!


A/N: First of all, I want to really apologize for the judges of the Percy Jackson Fanfiction Olympics for my late entry, and I'm so grateful you're letting my continue with the competition. It's really a lot of fun, and I recommend everyone reading this fic goes to check out the other entries as well.

To all my other readers, who've noticed my lack of updates and review replies (particularly sorry about the latter), check my profile for status updates. I can't promise too much more in the near future, but once spring break arrives (about three weeks!), I swear I'll reply to everything and begin to update stories again. Thanks so much for your patience.

Warning: Violence and abuse. Drinking. Profanity. What can I say? Smelly Gabe's life isn't pretty.

A belt crackled against Gabriel's doorframe, resounding in a tremendous thunder of wood.

The ten-year-old peered between his fingertips, glimpsing a waterfall of woodchips. Wincing, he wondered how many days it would be before the door fell from the macerated frame.

Unnoticed tears scarred his face, doubling and tripling when he caught site of a pair of feet. Scraggly thistles of hair between the toes, nails yellowed from years of chain-smoking… Gabe huddled under his bed, understanding in mild surrender that it was useless to hide. When his father fell into his drunken cage of wrath, running away became useless.

"_Gabriel!" _Spittle of whiskey and barbecue sauce trickled down Mr. Ugliano's chin, and the small boy felt a squirm of disgust.

No matter how often his father beat him, he would never succumb to this life. Hands fisting, mind imaging the bruises blooming on his spine, Gabe prayed as deeply as he could. He'd never believed in God really, but sometimes his resigned misery ebbed in the direction of hope; without this occasional slip, he would hardly have survived a decade of his father.

"I'm gonna kill you, you little – " Steaming profanities clawed at the bed like raptors, pricking Gabriel's earlobes with their fire. Again, he scrunched into a ball, wishing with all his might. Whatever happened, he wanted, someday, to find a life beyond this; he did not want to be his father. Somewhere, someday, he wanted to know the feelings of love.

Whether in answer or denial, the belt then found its mark. Shattering the pigments of his youthful skin, Gabe screamed as the leather met its mark. It always did.

20 years passed. Though improved slightly his move from home, Gabe found things tumbling in a direction that unsettled him.

He could not keep a job. Balding prematurely, he often received snide looks of judgment or loathing. His poor esteem, cracked from years of burden, could not bear it; seeking refuge from the sharp eyes and stifled conversations, the second Gabriel Ugliano spent his nights in a bar.

Downing beers by the half dozen, it became a habit. A vicious cycle, even. The world hated him, and so Gabe drank. He drank, and so he became intolerable: boorish, crude, aggressive. His feeble appearance dwindled further with his lack of care, and soon even the bartender appraised him with a grimace.

"Innit something," he slurred, speaking mostly to the baseball came. "How the world only likes pretty things…?" The questioned trailed to dust as Gabriel lost consciousness, dead drunk on the barstool.

They found him, a few months after this. His poker group. As drunk and homely as he, they sought his company without a care for his myriad of flaws. For that reason, Gabe spent the first year of their friendship treating them as his superiors.

He lent cash, he hosted the crowd in his studio apartment. Soon though, he lost patience with politeness. He sneered at his friends, stole their money. They couldn't have cared – after all, they were the same – but it marked Gabe's limits clearly.

As hard as he had tried to escape his mold, to do better than his deceased mother and abusive father, he did not possess the affection for it. Weakness attracted him, for it gave him something to rule; he saw something that could finally give him a semblance of control.

Clinging to this sense of power like a lifeboat, he steadily became the leader of their little group. He bore the meanest bones, the ugliest expression; it made sense that he would take over. For a while, life continued with steady ease.

When Sally Jackson stepped into the bar that night, it slowed Gabe's heart for a split second. He felt his insides squirm, remembering a wish he'd made long ago. Too many years had passed, and he couldn't quite remember it, but the remnants stuck like plaque in his gut.

Her brown eyes picked him out, her long legs bringing her to his side. She smiled, the red on her lips striking him somewhere between his legs. And he returned the expression, caught too far off guard to feel suspicious. Never an observant man, he missed the sorrow in her brow and the lines in her cheeks.

"Wanna… sit?" Gruff as ever, he pulled roughly at the stool beside him.

"Thanks."

Still dazed, he stared open-mouthed in the direction of her chest. "You… you – what's your name?" he stumbled, pushing away his drink.

She folded her arms politely, the smile plastered foolishly to her face; failing to recognize its pretext, Gabe continued to gawk.

"I'm Sally," she said, and her voice hummed in a way that made him want to breathe her.

"Gabe. Ugliano. It's … nice to meet you." The first time he'd uttered the sentence, and also the last.

For approximately thirty seconds, Gabe managed to capture something from long ago. His mother's lashes as she bent to kiss his cheek, the compassionate hand of a preschool teacher when his father showed up at the building. Care. It escaped him until now, but something in the woman's gaze returned it to him.

Though he missed her motive and her story, missed the paramount of devotion that she truly needed, he treated her with as much respect as he was able. He met her son, had dinner with her, and the image of his mother's face stayed beside him for the duration.

But like most fragile things, the vision had its limits. Stuck in his clumsy hands, the picture began to crack. One day, barely days after their wedding, it crumbled to ashes on the floor.

"Percy!" he roared, finding the boy's sneakers near his chair. "What the fuck do you think this is?" He dangled the offensive shoe by its lace, eyes dangerously bright.

"I – I" Percy glanced up, confused; Gabe had never acted this way before.

The older man paused for a moment, drawn back to the many evenings he spent with his father's fist in his face. He slowed, nearly stopping, until he caught a glimpse of Percy's expression. Rather than afraid, he looked defiant; guards swept over his green eyes, protecting him the only way they knew how.

Furious at the discrepancy in their respective nerves, Gabe swung. And an Ugliano never misses.


End file.
